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The renovation of the Richelieu building: a future centre for art researchers in Paris
Abstract
The historic site of the French national library is currently being renovated in order to become a major centre for art documentation and special collections. It will incorporate three separate institutions: the specialist departments of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the library of the Institut national d’histoire de l’art, and the library of the Ecole nationale des Chartes. Completion of the project is scheduled for 2017.
... The new INHA Salle Labrouste, set to seat many hundreds of readers per day amidst close to 250,000 materials in open stacks, acknowledges this perceived requirement among researchers in France ( fig. 4). 15 Similarly, researchers working at the Getty Research Institute may still desire some of that traditional monastic ambience for reading, for thinking, for looking, and for writing. But today, when archival research is frequently about taking photos on one's mobile device for later consultation rather than for careful study in the archive, when so many books are housed in storage, and when reading books and periodicals may be often done online instead of in person, art libraries are also increasingly encouraging and facilitating collaborative scholarship, teaching, and the development and production of new resources among scholars and staff. ...
Art libraries have traditionally been exceptional places in which to conduct research, due to the nature of their collections and often also because of the spaces they occupy. Today, when library materials are provided, discovered, accessed, created, and displayed in a variety of ways both physically and virtually, art historians navigate and define research paths differently than in the past. At the same time, the ideal of connecting ideas and collections remains, even as the potential, breadth, and depth of the connections expand. The development of the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute, since the realization of a vision first outlined at the cusp of the digital era thirty years ago, provides a framework by which to consider the nature of art libraries and art historical research, both in situ and in cyberspace.
The Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA) is still little known among library professionals, and still insufficiently known by researchers and its other potential users. Created by decree in July 2001, it has been extremely slow in gestation and researchers in the field of art have waited for it for a very long time. The Institution’s Library, comprising the largely complementary holdings of three of the main art libraries in Paris, is expected to open within a few years, and readers will be housed mainly in the beautiful Salle Labrouste, formerly occupied by users of the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale.